Jon is a flâneur of words and the Internet who created, wrote and directed (mainly by Direct Message) the first ever piece of drama to be performed on Twitter. Back in 2008 he persuaded a cast including MP Tom Watson to give over their timelines to perform Twitpanto: a full length piece of theatre that spun its story out into the unsuspecting online World. He’s organised psychogeographic trips around Birmingham’s Outer Circle, measured the emotional wellbeing of the city, started ‘Talk Like a Brummie Day’, and as well as founding the famous blog Birmingham: It’s Not Shit. He currently edits Paradise Circus: A Birmingham Miscellany. All of his projects work in the space where emotion and place collide—online and off.

He’s currently finishing a book about visiting every seaside pier in England and Wales — Pier Review — which has been described as “On the Road meets On the Buses”.

Jon was the ’14th Most Influential Person in the West Midlands’ 2008. Subsequently not placed.

Tag: British Telecom

Googlewacker and America crosser Dave Gorman has being trying to sort his broadband out this week — he’s written up two accounts of his dealings with BT tech support:

I kept hearing the following phrase:
“Your case has been escalated to the complex faults team but due to a system error the task has failed.”

I kept asking the helpdesk staff to explain what this ridiculous sentence meant. On every single occasion, they just repeated the phrase as if repeated listening would make its meaning transparent. Then, when locked in a two-hour conversation with one of them and having long reached a state of tetherlessness I started trying to break it down.
“What is the system? What is the error? What is the task and how has it failed?” I asked.
“Due to a system error the task has failed.”
“Yes. But I don’t know what that means. I need you to explain the words to me. What task has failed?”

Guess what? What it meant was: we’ve sent a message to the engineers but due to a cock up, the message hasn’t got through.